Woyome defends payment of GH¢51.2m

Alfred Agbesi Woyome, the businessman answering charges of defrauding by false pretence and causing financial loss to the state, yesterday denied misleading the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice to endorse his claims for the payment of GH¢51.2 million.

He said the minister had been “categorical” in her statement that a letter from a former Deputy Minister of Finance constituted a contract between him (Woyome) and the government.

Mr Kweku Agyemang-Manu, the former Deputy Minister of Finance, had, some time in 2005, given Woyome a letter which introduced him to financial institutions abroad.

But he had been emphatic in the letter that those institutions should not enter into any agreement with Woyome without recourse to the government. 

Woyome sought to solicit funding for stadia projects for CAN 2008.

Rebutting an assertion from a Chief State Attorney, Mrs Yvonne Attakorah-Obuobisa, that he had deceived Mrs Betty Mould-Iddrisu, a former Attorney-General, into accepting his claims, Woyome said the prosecution’s assertion was incorrect because no one had shown him the part of his claim which was purportedly misleading.

He also rejected the state’s position that the government did not contract him to engage in financial engineering to warrant any payment to him.

Charges

Woyome has pleaded not guilty to two counts of defrauding by false pretence and causing financial loss to the state.

According to the state, Woyome put in false claims in 2010, which resulted in the payment of GH¢51.2 million to him in judgement debt.

Evidence

Answering questions under cross-examination when the case was called yesterday, the accused person said Mpowapak, a company he had represented as an alternate director, had received payment from Waterville Holdings for financial services rendered but he could not recollect the exact amount received.

He said those payments did not constitute the amount owed him by the government for rendering financial engineering services.

Woyome told the court, presided over by Mr Justice John Ajet-Nasam, that he provided financial engineering services, while Waterville handled the technical bit for the CAN 2008 project.

Role of Vamed

He had earlier told the court that Vamed Engineering pulled out of the stadia construction tender process because it was not familiar with Waterville Holdings.

The accused person, however, conceded, upon further questioning, that Vamed had, in a letter to a former Minister of Finance, Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo, indicated that it was not interested in bidding for stadia construction for CAN 2008 because it was into constructing hospitals. 

He explained that the financial condition, which was accepted by the government, included the construction of hospitals.

Woyome said he had nothing to do with the government’s termination of the contract with Waterville in August 2006.

Hearing continues today.